Pictorial Cycle of the Prophet Mohammed’s Ascension

A masterpiece of Timurid style, the Mi’ragnama was produced in 1436 in Herat in the north of modern-day Afghanistan. It is written in a Turkish dialect (Chaghatay Turkish) with Uighur Turkish and Arabic scripts. The manuscript includes the Mi’rajnama or Miraj Nameh (Book of the Ascension). Its sixty-one illustrations show the angel Gabriel leading the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to the Seven Heavens and Hell.

This superb facsimile we’ve acquired captures not only the text and illustrations, but also the luxurious enclosure of the original. It describes the adventures of the prophet Mohamed’s journey through the celestial sphere, in the company of the Archangel Gabriel, to arrive before the throne of God and his subsequent return trip to Earth through the seven circles of Hell.

In medieval Europe, this manuscript became known through the Latin translation that Alfonso the Wise commissioned from the school of translators in Toledo and that, in the judgment of experts, appears to have inspired Dante’s Divine Comedy.